I had booked a rental car for two weeks, like Kathi already told you, so we could experience the adventure „driving in Thailand“ personally :o) Unfortunately I had food poisoning for five days which kept me around Chiang Mai, so there is not that much to tell from that period of time unless you are interested in details like colour or consistency of the… ehm.. outcomes of food poisoning.
Elephants are omnipresent here in Thailand: uncountable little statues, postcards, pictures of all sizes and sculptures capture your eyes in each and every overloaded souvenir shop and there is even an „elephant-beer“- Chang – (‚Chang‘ is Thai for ‚elephant‘), which is by the way very good and even comes in man-friendly bottles of 644 ml :o). But to do some ordinary elephant riding like it is offered at every tourist attraction where you sit on back saddles while a mahout (an elephant rider) is giding you through the same beaten tracks over and over again, that’s boring and way too easy, I thought. If I am to ride an elephant, I want to learn it so I can do it all by myself just like a mahout, on the elephant’s neck!
So I began with thorough Internet research on Elephant Camps. My main criteria: The animals must be kept in their natural environment (and therefore set free to the jungle for the night for instance) and the profits must be used for animal welfare/ the elephants. But after I read a bit more about the traditional training of the elephants, I realised that this is nothing I can or want to support: In order to tame these sensitive animals they are taken away from their mothers at the age of four and held in tiny bamboo cages which do not allow even a fraction of movement. Then these poor creatures are treated torture-like for days: They are hit with bamboo sticks and picked with nails, get no sleep but being exposed to constant noise until their will is entirely broken. Ironically, these same animals do anything for their mahouts later in order to keep them happy.
My hope to be close to elephants after all faded more and more.. but then I stumbled over a very special camp with a totally different ideology: the „Elephant Nature Park“. Here they take in mistreated elephants or those who were in an accident (e.g. there are still landmines here after all) and provide a life for them which is appropriate to the species. A true heaven for domestic elephants!
In this camp I spent two wonderful days and one night. We were divided in small groups and received a briefing for security because on this territory, the elephants can walk freely wherever they want to and are only accompanied by their mahouts. The first and most important rule was explained to us quickly and had a convincing logik of its own: „When I start running, so should you. Or you’ll end up as toys for the elephants.“ :o)
We spent most of the time feeding and bathing the animals and in the evening we got a wonderful tasty dinner. I passed my time with Petar, Cheryl, Jack, Nik, the „Vezeans“ and Luke. That was a funny bunch of people :o) After a walk through the park and some „tubing“ (floating on the tyre-tube of a tractor down the river) the time in the camp was over way too quickly… but I left with so many great experiences and memories. It is such a great feeling to experience these animals – their intelligence, their different character traits and how sensitive these grey giants can be. When Kathi comes back here to do further massage courses in Chiang Mai, I will accompany her and do an internship in this park :o)

15 Kommentare auf “„When I start running, so should you!“”

yeaaahh babe, fantastic! love the pics – specially the Mahout who looks like Mogli with his Elephants and the text is great as well….come come to Kenya, I got the other Big 4 here as well and we find a Massai to go Tango in the Massai Mara ;)